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Finding the right CDN for our startup

robin.userapp.io

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Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#51

Post by slowdown »

groks wrote: post #43
slowdown wrote: post #21

Prospective Rackspace customers - Avoid the cloudfiles offering from Rackspace at all costs. Their support is good, but we used to average out atleast one user who were getting access denied to store their files on Cloudfiles (We're kind of a file upload service in the most basic context). Switching in progress (to S3) and so far so good. I guess you get what you pay for, after all.

You're having problems with uploads only? What about downloads?

Sometimes they don't resolve properly too. And for vide, it's worse, they don't set the Mime type sometimes, which is quite irritating, for example say Mp4, because the video tag needs this to be set for it to work consistently :(

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#52

Post by computer »

PLenz wrote: post #45
moot wrote: post #25

I've been extremely happy with CloudFlare. 4chan probably wouldn't be around today without them. CF has helped us by mitigating every DDoS since we started with them two years ago, and have kept operating costs in check by offering flat pricing. Even at their highest tier (Enterprise), we're saving money versus what we'd be spending with our colo.

Another point for Cloudflare here. Seriously boost in site responsiveness after we went with them on our site. They also have a CDN of JS and CSS libs that we use extensively at http://cdnjs.com/

Just adding my personal experience: my sites went from a 30ms response time (measured by Google's webmaster tools, as Googlebot sees it) to over 250ms on CloudFlare, for static (cacheable) content.

Turning it back off gave a very clear improvement both in my own experience and according to Google's chart.

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#54

Post by stellar678 »

kalleboo wrote: post #28

Are the high SSL costs because they need a dedicated IP per domain at each of their POPs? Would it be possible for them to offer an SNI-only SSL option for far cheaper if you know beforehand who your clients are (say, if you're hosting content for an iOS app)?

CDN.net offers the Subject Alternate Name option for $199/year. I've been doing research but we haven't tried them yet.

Edit: Just recalled they use Subject Alternate Name, not SNI. This is where they add your domain to their SSL certificate.

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#55

Post by wpeterson »

cmer wrote: post #11

We switched from Cloudfront to Fastly and couldn't be happier. These guys are awesome and the product is top notch. I highly recommend Fastly. We weren't too impressed with Cloudfront. The performance was all over the place and they provide no insight for cache hits/misses.

We had the same experience: CloudFront to Fastly.

Fastly has a great CDN service, beutiful origin hosting for a Rails or Python app, and customizable output filters (gzip? yes, please) and customizable cache config.

Can't recommend them enough.

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#56

Post by groks »

slowdown wrote: post #51
groks wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're having problems with uploads only? What about downloads?

Sometimes they don't resolve properly too. And for vide, it's worse, they don't set the Mime type sometimes, which is quite irritating, for example say Mp4, because the video tag needs this to be set for it to work consistently :(

They don't set the mime-type on upload, or you set the mime-type on upload and they fail to set it when you download it via the Akami CDN?

I was planning to use Cloud Files and it's CDN. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#57

Post by ommm »

moot wrote: post #25

I've been extremely happy with CloudFlare. 4chan probably wouldn't be around today without them. CF has helped us by mitigating every DDoS since we started with them two years ago, and have kept operating costs in check by offering flat pricing. Even at their highest tier (Enterprise), we're saving money versus what we'd be spending with our colo.

It was due to 4chan's success with CF that I chose it for the projects I was the lead system architect for.

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#58

Post by philfreo »

alecsmart1 wrote: post #29

We were using Amazon CloudFront and bleeding money. Approximately spending about $50 every 2 days. I researched to find a cheaper alternative. And found cdn77.com. Very good and reliable. The costs came down to approx $100/mo. I am not sure about custom SSL pricing though.

Bleeding money due to frequent cache invalidations, or traffic?

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#59

Post by opendomain »

moot wrote: post #25

I've been extremely happy with CloudFlare. 4chan probably wouldn't be around today without them. CF has helped us by mitigating every DDoS since we started with them two years ago, and have kept operating costs in check by offering flat pricing. Even at their highest tier (Enterprise), we're saving money versus what we'd be spending with our colo.

I can not recommend CloudFlare enough. They offer a LOT of services for FREE! I have never had any problems and they use 2 factor auth.

Re: Finding the right CDN for our startup

#60

Post by neilk »

jread wrote: post #31

I created a browser based test a few years ago that captures CDN latency from real users and correlates the results regionally using MaxMind ( http://cloudharmony.com/speedtest ). CDNs set themselves apart outside of the US where infrastructure is more complex and costs are higher. I posted a spreadsheet that provides a breakdown on CDN latency globally based on this testing (tens of thousands of tests from thousands…

How can you do a fair test across so many different providers? Presumably you did not host the exact same content with every single service.

Also, I'd be interested in seeing the results for Fastly.

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